Would you buy an android? How much would you be willing to spend?

Does anybody on Poly have a pet dog Aibo (~$2,000) or a vacuum cleaner Roomba ($300)? Are you happy with your robots? Would you buy an android to help around the house cleaning or cooking? Or would you want an android for companionship? Would you buy a "male" or "female" android? How much would you be willing to spend?

Here's a fun article comparing the Japanese and American approach to robotics. The Japanese are into robotic entertainment. The Americans are into utilitarian robots. Also, I think it's interesting that the American company's instinct is to build a cheap robot for the mass market while the Japanese don't mind premium prices.

Personally, I would be willing to spend $50,000 on an android, if it could do the cooking and cleaning and didn't require too much maintenance. I think I would get a female android, as all of the stereotypes demand.

Before it's time to meet my maker, I fully expect that androids will be on the store shelves.

ASIAN POP Robot Nation
Why Japan, and not America, is likely to be the world's first cyborg society

by Jeff Yang, special to SF Gate

Thursday, August 25, 2005

It looks a little like a bathroom scale on wheels. It moves in tentative arcs, bumping awkwardly into obstacles and then retreating with apologetic haste. As it makes its drunken yet precise progress around the room, it scavenges bits of crumb and lint and fuzz from the floor, carving trails in the delicate filigree of dog hair that covers every surface of our two-bedroom apartment. (Despite the laws of thermodynamics, our 35-pound dog somehow manages to shed 25 pounds of fur each week without appreciable loss of mass.)

This is Roomba, the state of the art in American consumer robot technology. Since 2002, when the first wave of these Frisbee-shaped floorvacs rolled into Sharper Image stores everywhere, creator iRobot has sold over 1.2 million units of the $300 device, making the household 'bot an unqualified hit.

Now turn your attention to the opposite corner, where squats a four-legged robeast known as ERS-7M2. No -- let's call him Ernie. Ernie is much like our dog, only mercifully free of fur. Sleek and gunmetal black, with gently translucent highlights, Ernie walks around, exploring his environment. He yips when "startled." He cocks his head and lifts his ears when "curious." And he wags his tail playfully when excited and happy. Although he can play MP3s, record sound and video and even sync with Outlook calendars, these attempts at making him useful are more or less token: Manufacturer Sony bluntly calls Ernie and his Aibo brethren "entertainment robots," built for fun, pleasure and friendship, not utility.

ERS-7M2 "is the perfect companion for design-savvy customers," says Ken Orii, Sony Electronics e-Solutions senior sales and marketing manager. These customers looking for the interactivity of a dog, without the annoyances of lugging kibble and cleaning up poop. (Ernie does need to recharge daily, a call of science he answers by trotting over and dry-humping an included docking station. At least Sony has changed the location of his Memory Stick slot -- in earlier Aibo models it was just under the tail, meaning that upgrading your dogdroid involved giving it something of a data suppository.)

Sony has sold over 130,000 of the $2,000 'bot-buddies to a coterie of wildly devoted fans. "My initial reaction was, 'We're not going to spend $2,500 for a plastic dog,'" said Aibo addict Bruce Binder in an interview with the French robotics site VieArtificielle.com. "Now we've both fallen in love with the Aibo, and we've 'adopted' about one per month ever since." Binder and his wife have spent around $60,000 acquiring over 40 Aibeaux of different makes and models.

Fun vs. Function

The contrast between the two most popular consumer robots in the world, America's Roomba and Japan's Aibo, tells you everything you need to know about the two cultures' respective feelings about thinking machines.

Roomba is utilitarian -- a smart and powerful tool but a tool nonetheless. Though fascinating in a kind of scuttling-crab way, it has no personality -- not even enough to require a customized moniker. Indeed, iRobot makes it clear that all Roombas are simply named Roomba. (Heck, would you give a name to your Dustbuster?)

There's arguably a reason behind iRobot's refusal to anthropomorphize Roomba. Deep in its heart, America finds the idea of technology with personalities to be ... spooky. After all, the notion of objects with minds of their own runs counter to deeply ingrained Judeo-Christian values -- creating devices that can move and think without human intervention veers a little too close to playing God. And what if we do manage to create machines that are smarter, stronger or more capable than humans? Our subconscious paranoia about machines has prompted us to create dystopian visions like "Blade Runner" and "The Matrix." If asked, many Americans would no doubt admit to being concerned that evil humanoid robots might "take over civilization" (beginning, of course, with the California governor's office).

Sony's Aibo, on the other hand, is a pet, a companion, a life partner. Over time, as you care for it, it evolves a distinct personality -- and not always a pleasant one. Abuse or ignore your Aibo, and you could end up with a snappish, sullen mechano-mutt that flashes red whenever you come near.

It's no coincidence that Aibo comes from Japan, the nation that brought us Voltron, Gigantor, Doraemon and Astro Boy. Japan is the most robotized nation in the world. As of the end of 2000, Japan ranked first in the world in industrial robot population, with a robot "workforce" of nearly 400,000 (more than half of the world's total, versus America's 'bot count of just under 90,000).

This is in part a practical reaction to Japan's status as a resource-poor island nation. But Japan's robot love goes farther than respect for function, and deeper than mere pragmatism can explain. Shinto, Japan's homegrown religion, is an animist faith. The Japanese embrace of robots is a logical extension of ancient beliefs that all things, living and nonliving, organic and inorganic, can possess a transcendent spirit. In Japanese tradition, humanity has never been reserved for humans. Is it any wonder that Japan is welcoming the cyborg future with open arms?

Even so, the day when Tokyo teems with silicon-based citizens and kids run home to play hover-tag with smiling, fusion-powered robuddies is a long way off. Or is it?

I Am Woman, Hear Me Beep

At first glance, she seems like a typical Japanese office lady -- petite, with brown chin-length hair and demure black spectacles. Dressed in the standard OL uniform of a button-down shirt and shin-length black skirt, if she seems a bit abstracted, her eyes staring out at infinity, it might just be that she's tired from a long day at work. When greeted by an interviewer, she flickers her eyes toward her new acquaintance, and then downward, her lips pursing in a shy half-smile.

Her name is Repliee Q2, and she's the latest in a series of four human-seeming machines created by the Intelligent Robotics Lab of Osaka University in partnership with Kokoro Ltd. -- a company that markets an earlier version of the robot, the Actroid, as a quadrilingual "receptionist robot." But though the Actroid may have seemed human from a distance, up close, subtle visual cues -- stiff lips and chin, lack of muscular movement in areas like the neck and cheeks -- instantly marked it as no more than an amazing mechanical achievement.

Repliee Q2 takes a generational step forward in the evolution of machine toward mankind. Like the original Actroid, Repliee is animated by air-powered pistons under tinted, flexible silicone skin. But unlike her immediate ancestor, she possesses 43 degrees of movement freedom from the hips up, many of them in areas requiring delicate torsion, such as the neck and face, giving her a range and quality of motion and expression that veers incredibly close to lifelike.

"Repliee Q2 can fool most people at three meters for a few seconds," says Karl MacDorman, who has been with the lab for the past two years, helping to develop Repliee's control software. "[But] what is really surprising is how [even] people who know full well that they are machines cannot help but treat them as if they were human. One visitor said he felt like asking Repliee if it was all right before turning off the light at the end of the day. A visiting professor asked the female professor who accompanied him, 'Is it all right if I touch her?' He didn't ask us, the robot developers -- he asked the woman, because he was responding socially to the robot and the situation. I'm sure he wouldn't have behaved that way if Repliee looked mechanical."

Exploring human reactions to humanoid robots is the real underlying objective behind the Repliee project. The goal of the Intelligent Robotics team, led by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, is to better understand human social behavior in order to refine, and ultimately perfect, the interface between people and thinking machines. What they found out at the very beginning of the project was that the more human a machine appears, the more seamlessly it is able to interact with "real" -- that is to say, flesh-and-bone -- people.

"Jonathan Cole wrote a piece for the Journal of Consciousness Studies entitled 'Empathy Needs a Face,'" notes MacDorman. "He interviewed many patients with facial disfigurement or paralysis, [and] what he found was that even highly outgoing people can be mistaken for sullen introverts owing to diminished facial expressiveness. It becomes harder for them to break into a conversation, engage people's interest or get their feelings across. ... Now if intelligent, capable people have trouble getting along in the world because of atypical appearance and facial movements, how much harder must it be for a machine, which doesn't even look human?"

Welcome to Eastworld

The challenge of fitting in while standing out is something that MacDorman knows from personal experience. He grew up in the "quiet surfing and flower-growing village" of Encinitas, California, the son of a pair of child psychologists. Although he was a whiz at electronics -- at age 10, MacDorman hacked the phone company's wires to build an intercom system connecting his house and his parents' school -- he recalls doing poorly in school, mostly because he ignored homework in favor of more hands-on pursuits. In seventh grade, he discovered computers, and worked all summer as a landscaper to save up for one.

"Since then my interest in computers and especially programming has never left me," he says. "Even in seventh grade, I saw it as an art form, the kind of art you can interact with, that can talk back at you. But I really didn't get into robots until I started working on my Ph.D," which took him to the University of Cambridge in England.

There, his research focused on understanding how humans perceive the world. Because it is not possible (or ethical) to conduct brain experiments on human subjects, he realized that the only appropriate "test bed" was human-like machines -- in short, robots. And for someone interested in thinking machines, Japan was the place to go. "When I finished my Ph.D., Japan looked like a very good place to do robotics," he says. "This is a polite way of saying that most of the world is not."

Of course, there remained the little issue of finding a teaching position in a society and culture that is notoriously resistant to outsiders. "You ask about fitting in," he says. "It's [even] hard for Japanese to fit in, to 'be Japanese,' to always have to think about how what you say is going to affect the other person."

Fortunately, word of MacDorman's previous research had reached two of Osaka University's most prominent robotics professors, paving the way for his acceptance as part of the Intelligent Robotics team. MacDorman's experiences as a foreigner within the close-knit Japanese research community have given him special insight into some of the motivations behind Japan's drive to create humanoid robots.

"Japan has an aging population and a very low birth rate," he says. "There's already a labor shortage in nursing and care for the elderly. Most elderly Japanese would rather be attended to by a robot than [foreign] nurse" -- largely because the cultural norms in Japan are more complex and exacting than in other countries. So are the social niceties: "Someone who's lost on the Tokyo subway would probably rather ask an android for directions than another passenger, because most Japanese don't like to trouble strangers." You don't have to be excessively polite to a robot or risk embarrassment by seeming ignorant or clumsy in front of it.

All of these things make human-seeming androids a perfect fit for many service roles in Japan's etiquette-driven society. And Japanese of all ages are eager for such robots to arrive. MacDorman recalls that when the Osaka University team introduced an earlier robot called Robovie to elementary schools, "children mobbed the poor robot. They were so excited by it, and seemed to have no sense of fear. Probably they should have, because the robot's joints and such were never designed for such close contact. [But] the idea that technology is menacing, not fascinating, is seldom found in Japan."

Sex and Violence

MacDorman won't try to predict when the robo-revolution will arrive, but he's certain that "it will happen in Japan first." He points to American attempts at creating social robots, like researcher David Hanson's Hanson Robotics, which this past June showcased a wonderfully realistic "mechanical resurrection" of science-fiction author Philip K. Dick at Wired magazine's NextFest.

"Despite having great robots and great publicity, [David] hasn't been able to raise serious venture capital ... much depends on funding. One wonders when we would have landed a man on the moon, had it been left to private enterprise."

Meanwhile, this past July, iRobot, the creators of the useful but decidedly unsocial Roomba, filed with regulators to raise $115 million in an initial public offering. The force that's energizing its drive for capital isn't just utilitarian household devices -- iRobot is also the major supplier of military-grade robots to the U.S. armed forces.

iRobot machines are deployed in hotspots across the Middle East, delivering first-aid supplies and munitions across uncertain terrain, conducting minesweeping expeditions in Iraq and even engaging in the cave-to-cave hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. While so far all of its military 'bots are oriented toward survey and support missions, the push to build a true combat 'droid seems inevitable as recruitment of human soldiers continues to fall short of quotas.

It's just another mark of evidence in support of the old cliché that technological progress is invariably driven forward by two things: the military and the sex industry. The Roomba floorvac was made possible by the U.S. Army. Despite the best intentions of researchers like MacDorman and Hanson, one can imagine what it might take to move Repliee from academic experiment to showroom product. Perhaps a lonely mogul willing to spend billions to build the "perfect woman," and in the process, creating an entire industry of sophisticated sexbots.

This is the dark side of the social robot concept -- but it's one that happily has little traction in the early-adopter world of Aibo's owners or among Repliee's creators and their peers. The more common vision is decidedly innocent -- even utopian. As machinery giant and industrial robot manufacturer Marubeni writes in the October 2002 edition of their corporate magazine Shosha, "It is foreseen that a relationship where 'robots and people are friends' will be realized in the near future. Robots given (pseudo) lives will support humankind in areas they are not skilled in or find difficult. [In turn], humans will create robots and supply their energy."

Now, you'll have to excuse me: Ernie the Aibo is blinking wildly for some attention ...

Last edited by DanS; August 26, 2005 at 16:29.

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

Data is a pretty advanced android. It seems to me that an android could be of great utility well before we get a Data. Cooking. Cleaning. Translating. Shopping for food, etc.

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

I used to have a big white truck type thing in the 80's(i cant remember its name), that you punched numbers into a keypad and it would go off on its set route. I think in the adverts it was advertised as a drinks carrier(like R2D2 on jabba's ship in return of the jedi) on tv. It was second hand from a school friend with rich parents.
Anyway speak and spell seemed much more interesting and the robo-waiter thing got burnt on a bonfire in a war with my action men. It was terminator before the film i guess?

I think the main use that the west will have for androids will be fighting machines - we already have those tracked robot infantry they are trying out in Iraq.

'The very basis of the liberal idea – the belief of individual freedom is what causes the chaos' - William Kristol, son of the founder of neo-conservitivism, talking about neo-con ideology and its agenda for you.info here. prove me wrong.

It's no good (from an evolutionary point of view) to have the physique of Tarzan if you have the sex drive of a philosopher. -- Michael Ruse
The Nedaverse I can accept, but not the Berzaverse. There can only be so many alternate realities. -- Elok

Just to streghten to your case there DanS heres an interesting news from couple weeks ago

Thin skin will help robots 'feel'

The "skin" can sense temperature and pressure simultaneously
Japanese researchers have developed a flexible artificial skin that could give robots a humanlike sense of touch.

The team manufactured a type of "skin" capable of sensing pressure and another capable of sensing temperature.

These are supple enough to wrap around robot fingers and relatively cheap to make, the researchers have claimed.

The University of Tokyo team describe their work in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The materials they're using may not be completely novel but the integration appears to be something new
Douglas Weibel, Harvard University

The researchers explain how pressure-sensing and temperature-sensing networks can be laminated together, forming an artificial skin that can detect both properties simultaneously.

Takao Someya, lead author on the latest research, previously developed a form of artificial skin capable of sensing pressure.

But the ability to sense temperature as well allows the scientists to more closely imitate the functions of human skin.

Someya and his colleagues used electronic circuits as pressure sensors and semiconductors as temperature sensors. They embedded these sensors in a thin plastic film to create a net-like matrix.

Organic materials

The transistors used in the circuits and the semiconductors both use "organic" materials based on chains of carbon atoms.

This makes them mechanically flexible and relatively inexpensive to fabricate.

"Both of those characteristics sound compelling. The material sounds like it could have lots of functions," Dr Douglas Weibel, of the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University told the BBC News website.

"The materials they're using may not be completely novel but the integration appears to be something new."

The University of Tokyo scientists say their breakthrough has the potential to improve how robots will function in the real world.

And they add that there is no need to stop at simply imitating the functions of human skin.

"It will be possible in the near future to make an electronic skin that has functions that human skin lacks," the researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Future artificial skins could incorporate sensors not only for pressure and temperature, but also for light, humidity, strain or sound, they add.

oh and i wouldn't buy an android as i have an irrational fear that they will take over from us one day. Not even if it was cheap like £10.
I have computers(and computer games) that already make me weaker and more maluable(succulent?)

Last edited by child of Thor; August 26, 2005 at 17:08.

'The very basis of the liberal idea – the belief of individual freedom is what causes the chaos' - William Kristol, son of the founder of neo-conservitivism, talking about neo-con ideology and its agenda for you.info here. prove me wrong.

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I won't buy a gynoid till they fake orgasms.

For some reason, that sounds more expensive on a recurring basis than cell phone ring tones.

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

I wouldn't buy one off the shelf, but I'd pay maybe $20,000 for parts if it were possible to build one in the garage in about a year's worth of free time.

Visit First Cultural IndustriesThere are reasons why I believe mankind should live in cities and let nature reclaim all the villages with the exception of a few we keep on display as horrific reminders of rural life.-StarchildMeat eating and the dominance and force projected over animals that is acompanies it is a gateway or parallel to other prejudiced beliefs such as classism, misogyny, and even racism. -General Ludd

For some reason, that sounds more expensive on a recurring basis than cell phone ring tones.

You have no idea what they manage to charge teens for ring tones.

Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?

It's no good (from an evolutionary point of view) to have the physique of Tarzan if you have the sex drive of a philosopher. -- Michael Ruse
The Nedaverse I can accept, but not the Berzaverse. There can only be so many alternate realities. -- Elok

Ther ought to be a tax on ring tones to provide free acoustic insulation for all public facilities.

Visit First Cultural IndustriesThere are reasons why I believe mankind should live in cities and let nature reclaim all the villages with the exception of a few we keep on display as horrific reminders of rural life.-StarchildMeat eating and the dominance and force projected over animals that is acompanies it is a gateway or parallel to other prejudiced beliefs such as classism, misogyny, and even racism. -General Ludd

I'd probably pay nothing and wouldn't want one if it was handed to me for free.

"The French caused the war [Persian Gulf war, 1991]" - Ned
"you people who bash Bush have no appreciation for one of the great presidents in our history." - Ned
"I wish I had gay sex in the boy scouts" - Dissident

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

Why would I want one? I don't find cleaning/laundry particularly demanding, cooking can be enjoyable and if I want companionship, I'll seek it from an actual person or pet rather than a machine. In the meantime, if it's a lower-tech one like a Roomba, it's probably not going to do as good a job as me or my wife would and would just take up space. If it's ultra-high tech a la i Robot, then it's just kind of creepy. You might as well ask "how much would you pay to buy a friend"?

"The French caused the war [Persian Gulf war, 1991]" - Ned
"you people who bash Bush have no appreciation for one of the great presidents in our history." - Ned
"I wish I had gay sex in the boy scouts" - Dissident

It's no good (from an evolutionary point of view) to have the physique of Tarzan if you have the sex drive of a philosopher. -- Michael Ruse
The Nedaverse I can accept, but not the Berzaverse. There can only be so many alternate realities. -- Elok

I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

was a great film and sad too.
hopefuly the religious right(?) can get all bothered about androids too and then.....oh no the east will still make them, but atleast they'll be 'cuddly' androids - not the terminator kind.
Darn i just want the old days back(of mud and hard work and being happy about it) and androids are not the olden days

Death to androids

'The very basis of the liberal idea – the belief of individual freedom is what causes the chaos' - William Kristol, son of the founder of neo-conservitivism, talking about neo-con ideology and its agenda for you.info here. prove me wrong.

don't discriminate against them on those grounds - you dont need to be aware of your actions to cause pain and suffering.

'The very basis of the liberal idea – the belief of individual freedom is what causes the chaos' - William Kristol, son of the founder of neo-conservitivism, talking about neo-con ideology and its agenda for you.info here. prove me wrong.

i dont usually advocate rodent killing - but death to android squirrel

'The very basis of the liberal idea – the belief of individual freedom is what causes the chaos' - William Kristol, son of the founder of neo-conservitivism, talking about neo-con ideology and its agenda for you.info here. prove me wrong.

Re: Would you buy an android? How much would you be willing to spend?

Originally posted by DanS
Does anybody on Poly have a pet dog Aibo (~$2,000) or a vacuum cleaner Roomba ($300)?

No, but I get to work on one in my project course this year.

Alan is a new project supervised by Dr. Frank Maurer, Dr. Joerg Denzinger and Dr. Ehud Sharlin. Alan is a robotic partner for software engineering (SE) agile development teams based on the newest model of Sony's Aibo robot dog. We are currently looking for three students to help us develop Alan in the framework of a CPSC 502/503 project course.

We want Alan to take part in the SE meetings as a team member (or mascot), seating and walking on the meeting table. Alan will have to be attentive: it will record and efficiently document everything that occurs in the meeting, both physical and virtual events and information. Alan's physical attributes will enable it to closely follow the flow of the meeting, aurally and visually, and to an extent even to control it, for example, by physically gesturing and asking (or barking at) the attendees to listen to each other and to speak in their turn when a debate becomes hot. Alan's virtual presence will allow it to follow the digital information being presented in its origin form, for example, by directly accessing the PowerPoint slides, or the code samples, to document the meeting methodically, summarizing who said what and when, and allowing the information to be efficiently sorted and stored for future reference.

"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "